Memo

TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the social services law, in relation to providing relief on statewide central register clearance fees for tax exempt organizations

PURPOSE: To remove an unfunded state mandate on tax-exempt not-far-profit child care providers by exempting them fees charged for State Central Registry clearances of facility staff.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS: Paragraph (f) of Subdivision 1 of section 424-a of the social services law, as amended by section 1 of part R of chapter 58 of the laws of 2011, is amended to exempt not-for-profit child care providers horn having to pay fees of $25 per person for state required clearance checks with the State Central Registry (SCR).

JUSTIFICATION: Child care providers classified as federal 501(C)(3) not-for-profit organizations most often serve low income families, providing child care services that permit parents to be employed. Under state law, all employees of child care facilities must be cleared through the State Central Registry (SCR) to determine if the employee is the subject of an indicated report of child abuse or maltreatment Prior to 2011, facilities were not charged for such clearances but in 2011 a fee of $25 for each employee clearance was imposed.

Imposing the clearance fees on not-for-profit providers represents an unfunded burden on providers and reduces the amount of funds spent on the provision of services, Also, at a time when non-for-profit service providers are being told they must hold their administrative costs and overhead to less than 15% of total costs, state mandates that drive up administrative costs make it increasingly more difficult for providers to manage their budgets.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: 2011-12: S.6828/A.9947 Referred to Children and Families

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: Marginable loss of fee revenue to the Office of Children and Family Services.

LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None.

EFFECTIVE DATE: This act shall take effect immediately.

Text

STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
110
2013-2014 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
(PREFILED)
January 9, 2013
___________

Introduced by Sen. GALLIVAN -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Children and Families
AN ACT to amend the social services law, in relation to providing relief
on statewide central register clearance fees for tax exempt organiza-
tions
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. Paragraph (f) of subdivision 1 of section 424-a of the
social services law, as amended by section 1 of part R of chapter 58 of
the laws of 2011, is amended to read as follows:
(f) The office of children and family services shall charge a fee of
twenty-five dollars when it conducts a search of its records within the
statewide central register for child abuse or maltreatment in accordance
with this section or regulations of the office to determine whether an
applicant for employment is the subject of an indicated child abuse or
maltreatment report including an applicant to be a child day care
provider and a request made pursuant to subdivision six of this section.
THE FEE OF TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS SHALL NOT APPLY TO TAX-EXEMPT
NOT-FOR-PROFIT CHILD CARE PROVIDERS REGISTERED AS A FEDERAL 501 C(3)
CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION. Such fees shall be deposited in a special
revenue - other account and shall be made available to the office for
costs incurred in the implementation of this section.
S 2. This act shall take effect immediately.

EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD01959-01-3

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